Hermaphroditic electric terminals are known which substantially comprise a connection portion for connection to an electric cable; and a contact portion which cooperates, in use, with the contact portion of an identical terminal.
The contact portion normally comprises two contact blades extending substantially in the connection direction of the terminal and facing each other so that, when the terminal is connected to an identical terminal, one of the contact blades of each terminal is interposed between the two contact blades of the other terminal.
A drawback of known terminals of the type briefly described above lies in the contact blades being exposed and therefore subject to impact and deformation.
By way of a solution, electric terminals have been proposed in which the contact blade is substantially housed inside a box structure, as illustrated, for example, in EP-A-O 681 345 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,564,259.
Such terminals, however, are complex and expensive in design, and, once connected to an identical terminal, define a connecting unit of a width much greater than that of a single terminal.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a hermaphroditic electric terminal designed to eliminate the drawbacks typically associated with known terminals.
According to the present invention, there is provided an electric terminal as claimed in claim 1.